


Love Bite

by natsa



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Fluff and Angst, Honestly this is just a romcom in fic form, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24431836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsa/pseuds/natsa
Summary: Yuno’s life was mundane. He did what was expected of him. He did what he was told he should do. He focused on his studies, filling his free time with tedious extracurriculars he never really cared about. He was the perfect student, but he always felt empty inside.He never expected it to take an apocalypse and a loudmouth idiot for him to feel alive again.
Relationships: Asta & Yuno (Black Clover), Asta/Yuno (Black Clover)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 106





	1. Living, But Not Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I'm so HAPPY posting this new story. I've wanted to write this for years, and I finally got around to bringing this concept to life. Important Disclaimer: This fic was in no way meant to make light of the current pandemic, please do not read if these circumstances or the tag warnings bother you. That being said, enjoy reading!

“Fuck.”

Yuno moved quietly through the small, locally-owned convenience store. The shelves were short enough for him to see the entire store with a simple tilt of his head, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. A stray crawler could easily be the end of him if he wasn’t careful.

The high school senior walked methodically down the aisles, picking anything useful off the shelves and shoving it into his backpack quickly. This place was clearly raided before, empty shelves greeting him instead of the normal array of packaged, processed foods.

Then again, since when was anything normal?

It had been about three months since the unknown virus had uprooted his entire life. Before the massive surge in infected people, when media outlets were still going strong and the population still had electricity, news anchors and article headlines unknowingly reported the beginning of the end. The country of Clover had been sent into a state of shock when Spade soldiers overran a military research facility in the outskirts of the middle circle, taking whatever was inside.

It was all downhill from there.

Yuno had no idea how it happened. One day he was sitting in a classroom, watching the clock instead of listening to his instructor teach a subject he had already reviewed on his own. The next, he had lost his father, and his neighbors were trying to eat him. People seemed to show symptoms all at once, and some who didn’t even get bitten still turned. 

The only things he managed to grab on that fateful night were a couple of water bottles, an apple, his journal, and a pen. The last two items (which kept him sane through this shit show) were still safely tucked away in the small front pocket of his bag, separated from the messy pile of supplies occupying the larger one.

He was hoping to find some water in this place, but he had no such luck. The best he got was a two-liter bottle of some off-brand aloe vera drink.

Whatever. Beggars can’t be choosers.

After putting the drink away and swiping a couple of matchboxes, Yuno made his way out of the small shop. He checked the windows to see if there was any danger in going back outside. A large, broken glass cabinet that probably used to be home to several bottles of liquor took up the entire expanse of the left side windows, blocking his view. Yuno listened for the tell-tale sound of slow, shuffling feet, but heard nothing after a few seconds. He tentatively opened the door, assuming he was in the clear.

What a stupid assumption to make.

Looking straight ahead, it seemed like he was safe. When he turned his head to the left, he came face to face with the monster that plagued his nightmares.

A zombie.

Yuno had only been this close to one once before. Ever since then, he had avoided them at all costs. His long legs would carry him far away from the creatures as soon as he was aware of its presence, but now his legs were fixed in place. They felt too heavy to lift off the ground.

The zombie was staggering toward him. It hadn’t noticed him. Yuno learned very quickly that they relied on sound to locate potential food. He was naturally light on his feet, so Yuno never had a problem being caught off guard by them.

Not now though, because right now his brain decided it was the perfect time to panic and stop sending signals to the rest of his body.

He couldn’t help it. The zombie’s gray looking skin, it’s slow shuffle, and (worst of all) it’s gurgled moans, made him think of that day. Yuno’s golden eyes stayed fixed on the approaching monster’s body, but his mind drifted.

He thought of his father’s screams as he was attacked in their own home. He thought of the feral expression on the monster’s face when he bit into the white-haired man’s neck. He thought of his father’s last words.

Yuno’s breathing got heavy.

_ “Promise me you’ll stay alive, Yuno. Run. Run away and keep living!” _

Yuno hadn’t felt alive in a long time, but he was surviving just fine. However, he had a feeling that could easily change if he didn’t snap out of and get out of the zombie’s way.

It was a foot away from him now and still, Yuno’s legs remained firmly planted on the concrete below. No matter how hard he tried, the fear gripping his body wouldn’t let his muscles move. Was this really how he would go out? He desperately wanted to keep his final promise to his father, but his stupid legs wouldn’t work! It would be so easy to escape. It was just one zombie. All he had to do was-

“MOVE!”

That voice…

The harsh pounding of shoes hitting the ground started to overpower the horrendous groaning of the once-human monster. Yuno saw a head of spiky silver hair and a wooden baseball bat before his brain finally kicked in with a sense of self-preservation. If his legs wanted to stay where they were that was fine by him. He just had to work around it.

Yuno’s midnight black hair flew up harshly, and he squatted as low as his long limbs would allow. His response must have been satisfactory, because the next second, a powerful swing of the wooden bat collided with the zombie’s head. It was strong enough for the creature to fall on the ground to Yuno’s right and moan from the pain. The teenager had no time to process the situation before a hand was extended toward him.

“Come on! I yelled without thinking, so more are probably on their way. We need to get out of here, and quick. Stand up and run, Yuno!”

This time his legs finally listened.

He took the hand in front of him. In one fluid motion, his body was yanked upward and he started running without question. He followed behind the green-eyed boy as they moved quickly through empty streets filled with crashed cars and other staggering forms. They ran all the way to Hage Park, stopping in the most open part where there were fewer trees and you could easily see all around you.

The two caught their breath from the sprint for a moment before speaking.

“I think we’re safe for now. It's nice to see a familiar face,” the short boy said with a smile.

"Yeah," was all Yuno could say, and he meant it.

It really  _ was _ nice seeing a familiar face. Even if it wasn’t a close friend of his like Mimosa, he felt relieved to see someone he recognized who wasn’t also either dying or undead. It was a refreshing change of pace after the terror that coursed through his veins mere minutes earlier.

Asta was always a bit of a wild card.

His hair was the color of silver, a striking contrast from the dark colors he currently wore. He had his signature black headband on (Yuno can’t recall a single instance where he saw Asta without it) as well as a plain hoodie of the same color. His eyes were a bright green that seemed to shine in the midday sunlight. He was at least half a foot smaller than Yuno, but the amount of energy and charm he carried within him could make him seem so much bigger in comparison.

That charisma was why he was School Spirit Commissioner and the captain of Clover Academy’s Dance Team, back when all of that stuff still mattered. He was loud, and at times borderline annoying, but he always managed to instill his fellow classmates with a passion to move forward and improve.

Essentially, he was everything Yuno wasn’t.

Not that he minded much. It was just always a shock, seeing someone enjoying themselves doing things Yuno would find exhausting and troublesome. Yuno hated to admit it, but he also felt that inexplicable pull to pay attention to the other just like the rest of their classmates. Asta drew him in like a moth to a flame. He had spent more than a few Student Body meetings staring at the boy instead of doing his job as Treasurer.

He never acted on the strange urge though. The few words they had ever shared were polite greetings, discussion over a School Spirit proposal, or random bits of conversation while in class or during a school event he was forced to go to. They had attended the same school since their elementary days, but he had never made the effort to approach the other on his own.

It was strange. All of that felt like it happened during a different lifetime.

“You alone?” the blond asked tentatively.

Yuno nodded somberly.

“Same. Did you run into any survivors? Anyone from the military or something?”

Yuno shook his head.

“Damn. Neither have I. Being from a town in the middle of the countryside fucking sucks sometimes.”

“The country is probably diverting all its resources to defending Capital City. I can’t imagine the president would do much for people like us,” Yuno spoke.

By “people like us”, he was referring to the low-wage, small-town folk that made up the majority of the population of Hage. The president had made it abundantly clear that he despised anyone who wasn’t born into wealth or power because god forbid you actually  _ earn  _ your wage. Yuno swears the elections are rigged.

“You’re right. Bastard’s probably living it up in a bunker somewhere while everyone else is suffering through this mess.” Asta’s fists clenched.

“Well, it’s not like we can do anything about it. The best we can do is focus on staying alive and hope we don’t get bitten.” Yuno’s voice sounded hollow, devoid of hope that things would actually change for the better.

“Haha actually…” Asta scratched the hair behind his head with a nervous smile plastered on his face. Then he started taking off his hoodie.

“Wait, what are you-”

Words left him as soon as his amber eyes saw the crescent shape of a bite mark over washboard abs. It was shocking enough just to see one, but Asta’s whole upper body was  _ covered  _ in them. When he pulled the piece of clothing the entire way off, he revealed arms that were equally as scared as his chest and the sides of his stomach, which were all sporting nasty bruises.

Yuno backed away instinctively. Not again. This couldn’t happen right in front of him  _ again.  _ He  _ could  _ **_not_ ** feel that helpless ever again and survive on his own. He just couldn’t.

“Hey! Just chill and hear me out for a second. You see this bite?” The other pointed to a faint mark on his neck. “It’s the oldest one. The ones near my stomach are new and still bruising, but this one has had time to heal and start fading. Do you know how long that takes?” Asta asked.

Way longer than it does to transform into one of those monsters after they’ve bitten you, that’s for sure.

“How is that possible?” Yuno asked, dumbfounded.

“I have no idea. One day I got bitten because I was being a reckless idiot, and after a week I still wasn’t a zombie. I thought I was just lucky until I ran into a herd of hungry kids and  _ not _ the cute, human kind. I got mobbed by ‘em and they got my arms real good while I was trying to push them away. After I  _ still  _ didn’t turn, I figured I must somehow be immune. The bites on my stomach were from me trying to test it out.”

“Are you fucking crazy? Why would you get bitten willingly?” Yuno had no idea where this protective side of him came from, but his mouth formed words before his brain could stop them from being said. Yuno hated those marks. Asta didn’t need more.

“I had to make sure! Does it bother you that much?”

“Yes. Even if you don’t turn into a zombie, you still get hurt. Don’t do that.”

“Then how about this? Why don’t you come along with me to make sure I don’t do anything stupid like that again? I’m trying to get to the Capital City to see if they can use me for vaccine research or something. You’re smart and would keep me out of trouble. What do ya say?” Asta proposed. His face was friendly and inviting, and Yuno was sure his offer had nothing to do with safety in numbers and instead had everything to do with simply wanting human interaction again.

Yuno couldn’t say he didn’t feel the same way.

The decision was easy to make. Yuno would have someone to keep him from going crazy. He would have someone to watch his back. He would be able to build a connection with someone who he wouldn’t have to watch turn into a cannibal.

All in all, a win-win situation.

“Lead the way,” Yuno said. He didn’t know it yet, but that simple sentence would be the beginning of an adventure that would define him for the rest of his life.

For now, his statement earned him a grin from a very topless, very short, and  _ very _ buff eighteen-year-old with emeralds for eyes and ash for hair.

Asta was everything he didn’t know he needed until now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think? I love seeing comments on my work (it motivates me) and I respond to them all, so give me your opinion down below!
> 
> If you're new to my work, I recently finished another Asta/Yuno fic called Shape of Love, in case you want to check it out.
> 
> I have an IG page! I post updates and previews for future chapters and fics. Follow natsa.fics for the latest info or to talk to me personally!


	2. Sk8er Boi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asta and Yuno have a lunch date and steal stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It may have taken a month, but I'm back with an update for this fic. It's short, but I think that's just how chapters for this fic will turn out. I always have trouble writing second chapters for some reason, but I'll get better with time. For now, please enjoy reading!

“First things first, have you eaten lunch yet?” Asta asked.

Yuno shook his head. He didn’t really think about having three separate meals anymore. It wasn’t the most healthy, but he was always more focused on his surroundings and would stop to eat when he remembered to. Things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner had faded away the second his dad wasn’t there to remind him of the time of day.

God, he missed his dad so much.

“Neither have I. Guess that settles things! Let’s have some lunch and then we can make a game plan for how we’ll reach Capital City.” Asta’s voice broke Yuno out of his thoughts. Without waiting for a response, the other boy started walking toward one of the many solid concrete tables speckled throughout the park. Yuno did the same a second later, sitting across from his former classmate.

Asta turned to his bag, presumably to grab whatever food he was planning on eating. More reassured of their general safety now that he had a clear line of sight all around him, Yuno relaxed enough to focus all of his attention on his new companion.

The pack Asta carried around with him was much bigger than Yuno’s. It looked like it was meant for camping if Yuno had to take a wild guess. It seemed to be decently filled too because the spiky-haired boy across the table was rummaging through his belongings for quite a while before finding what he was looking for.

“Aha!” Asta exclaimed in triumph.

The blonde’s small hands shot up to reveal a bag of trail mix and beef jerky.

Yuno unwillingly snorted at the over the top reaction. He distantly wondered how long it had been since he was amused by anything so simple, but stopped that line of thinking in its tracks before he could spiral down that black hole. 

Nothing like that mattered. Not in this world.

Yuno unzipped his own backpack and moved stuff around, quickly finding something he wouldn’t mind eating for their lunch date. Just thinking something so absurd was enough to threaten another huff of something akin to amusement spilling from his mouth. Instead, Yuno casually pulled out a pre-packaged convenience store pastry with blueberry jam filling from his bag and checked the expiration date.

Only a few days old. That was probably fine.

There was a simultaneous crinkle of plastic as both boys opened their respective “meals” and began to eat. The wind was picking up and there was a strong breeze that rustled the leaves of the park’s tall trees. It was peaceful.

Yuno relished it.

“Want some?” a voice interrupted. Asta’s bag of trail mix was extended toward him in a friendly gesture. It was also paired with a gentle smile the likes of which Yuno hadn’t seen in _months_. Yuno looked at the assorted plastic bag filled with a variety of nuts, dried fruits, and the occasional morsel of chocolate. Then he looked back up into kind, amiable eyes. He didn’t have much of an appetite nowadays, and he was sure that his packaged bread was enough to hold him over until the evening, but he had this crazy feeling that if he refused, those crinkled eyes would sag and that upturned mouth would flatten.

Yuno took a small handful and didn’t question his decision further.

After eating their meals in pleasant silence, Yuno’s curiosity flared up once again as Asta pulled out what seemed to be a filtered water bottle from the inside of his pack and took a sip from it.

“What the hell do you keep in there?”

“Oh! Your right! We should take inventory of all our supplies since we’ll be traveling together,” Asta said.

That wasn’t at all what Yuno was thinking about, but if it got the boy to reveal what was in his Mary Poppins bag, Yuno was willing to take one for the team and let him believe he was smart instead of just super nosy. Asta opened his backpack as wide as possible before unceremoniously dumping all of its contents in a heap on the table.

In the pile was a phone, a compass, a speaker, a solar-powered charger, headphones, two protein bars, and several bottles of water as well as what looked like a tiny bottle of pills.

“Pills?” Yuno asked simply.

“Water purification tablets. My dad and I would go camping a lot, so we had a bunch of them in our hiking bags. Before I figured out I was immune, I would use my water bottle to filter rainwater and then use the tablets just in case. All the bottles I have are ones I’ve double purified.”

To say Yuno was impressed would be an understatement. The only reason he wasn’t dying from dehydration was that he would just happen to stumble onto packs of water in the storage rooms of some of the stores he raided like the lucky bastard he was. On the other hand, Asta had been purifying water and using his brain.

Yuno was really starting to doubt his old report cards, but there was something to be said about the difference between book smarts and street smarts.

“You still have your phone?” Yuno had left his home in such a rush at the beginning of the outbreak that it was probably still sitting somewhere in his old apartment.

“Yeah. I never have service anymore, but I like to use the notes to write things down. I get distracted easily, so I make sure I write down what I need to do.” He scratched his cheek with his pointer finger and shot Yuno an almost shy looking smile.

 _Cute_.

“And the speaker?” It was the only item he couldn’t find a reason for keeping. If you used it to play music, it would only garner unnecessary and unwelcome attention.

“One of the most useful things in this pack! You know how those things are attracted to sound?” Yuno nodded. “Whenever I go inside a building I open the front door and blast music. It gets most if not all the zombies that are inside to come out.”

“That’s kind of genius, Asta.”

“Thank you,” he said. His eyes were shining from the compliment. Yuno liked his eyes. They reminded him of the leaves rustling all around them. “That’s all that I have right now, besides the bat and the water bottle which you’ve already seen. I’ve been running low on food for a while.”

“Well, I don’t think that’ll be much of an issue.” Yuno unzipped his own bag, but instead of dumping it out as Asta had, he took out each item one by one. By the time he had finished organizing all his belongings in neat, separated piles, Asta was giving an appreciative once-over of his inventory.

The largest pile contained a variety of packaged food he had just picked up from the liquor store, as well as his aloe vera drink. The next was made up of his useful materials. A flashlight, two boxes of matches, a swiss army knife, and a small first aid kit. The last pile contained his more personal items - his journal, pen, and school ID card.

“You still have your ID card?” Asta asked incredulously.

“Yeah. I always kept it in the front pocket of my bag. It’s pretty useless now.” Yuno had honestly forgotten about it until he had looked through his belongings just now.

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.” Yuno handed the green-eyed boy his identification card. Asta looked at the hard plastic card with a mix of emotions running through his face before speaking again.

“Yuno Vangeance. I always thought you had a very dramatic last name. I like it though, it’s super unique. Your picture came out way better than mine too,” he jealously huffed.

“I get that a lot, and I’m sure you looked fine. Come to think of it, I don’t think I remember your last name. Sorry.” The raven-haired boy felt slightly bad that Asta seemed to remember details about Yuno and he couldn’t do the same for the other. He had been so detached from everything during high school. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth to remember the full names of everyone in his year.

“That’s okay. It’s not as memorable as yours. My full name is Asta Roselei Sukehiro.”

“You have a middle name?” Asta nodded in confirmation, his smile never wavering in the slightest.

“My mom insisted on it. She’s a proud lady. Wanted my middle name to be the same as her maiden name.”

“If she’s so proud, wouldn’t she have just kept her last name?” Yuno asked curiously.

“She has a lot of pride, but she has even more love for my dad. She wanted to take his last name really badly, from what I’ve been told.” Asta was tapping the table lightly with his index finger, creating a soft rhythmic beat that Yuno surprisingly wasn’t annoyed by. The amber-eyed teenager looked away from Asta before asking his next question. He stared instead at a squirrel making its way up the tree next to their bench, its cheeks cutely stuffed with food.

“Are they still alive?” Yuno whispered. The tapping stopped.

“I hope so.”

For the sake of his new companion, Yuno hoped so too.

* * *

“Come on, Yuno! It’s fun!”

“Fun? _Fun_?! You’re fucking crazy! I’m not weaving through bloodthirsty cannibals on a skateboard like some Tony Hawk wannabe just because you think it’s fun!”

As Yuno moved away from a pair of pale, bloody hands outstretched toward him, he wondered how their chat in the park had led to him and Asta cruising through the streets in a stolen skateboard and scooter.

They had packed up their supplies and Asta had offhandedly mentioned he knew a way they could shave some time off of their trip to Capital City. Yuno, ever oblivious, followed Asta to a nearby skate shop. They climbed through the broken windows and Yuno nearly had a heart attack when he heard the groan of a zombie coming from the front of the shop.

The silver-haired boy told him to grab something quick and leave. Yuno took the first shitty, mass-produced skateboard he saw from a nearby rack and made his way back outside in record time. Asta traveled a little further inside the shop than Yuno had and come back out with a Razor scooter and a shit-eating grin.

After changing the height to something comfortable for himself, Asta took off without so much as a word to Yuno, laughing like a maniac and heading for Hage’s main roads. An unpleasant feeling was making its way up Yuno’s body. The main streets were filled with two things: crashed cars and the undead.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport! Just try to keep up, alright,” the shrimp had the audacity to turn back and _wink_ at him. It was also followed by the childish move of sticking out his tongue before he turned back around in time to weave in between two zombies on his left and right.

_Oh, you’re on, you tiny asshole._

Yuno hadn’t even touched a skateboard since he was thirteen, but it was easy to refamiliarize himself with how to ride it. He willed his body to not react to the crowd of zombies moving through the road. He tried to picture them as tall, nasty traffic cones he had to avoid at all costs while he tried to catch up to Asta.

Yuno kicked the ground with his leg to speed up, moving through the “cones” instead of trying to avoid them altogether. He caught up to Asta relatively quickly after dodging a couple more grabby hands aimed in his direction. Now he didn’t have to scream to talk to the other and draw attention to himself. 

“Where the hell are we going, Asta?” They were cruising side by side now, so Yuno could give him the look of bitchy annoyance he had perfected over the years. If Asta was going to be a petty child, he would be too. In fact, he kicked his feet again to gain a few feet on Asta out of pure spite.

“The library. I think they’d have a map of Clover Country. We can plan a route to take. Turn right here.” They turned onto a smaller street, one that was calmer and had fewer zombies on it. Thankfully, it was less cramped from the lack of wrecked cars.

“Can you do any tricks on that board?” Asta asked out of nowhere. Yuno smirked. He sure as hell could. Yuno did a perfect ollie on his first try and performed a couple of other tricks too because he was a total show off. Asta looked genuinely impressed.

“Oh wow! The most I can do on this thing is a bunny hop.” He made his point by doing a lame, small jump on the scooter. Asta grimaced at his weak trick. Yuno just laughed. It was a light, airy laugh that he was unable to control. Something he hadn’t done in a long time and sounded almost foreign to his ears, but still, it was welcome all the same. As insane as their current situation was, Yuno couldn’t find it within himself to complain.

He really was having fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you like the family reveals? I'm not following the manga for Asta and Yuno's family connections (as you now know). Just thought it'd be cool if their respective captains, who are already sort of father figures, were really their dads. And also for everyone that doesn't read the manga to not feel out of the loop.
> 
> Tell me what you think below! I thrive off of comments.
> 
> Instagram: natsa.fics (follow for chapter previews and updates!)


	3. Nightmare On Library Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuno kicks Asta's ass in Uno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, motivation is at an all-time low, but in exchange for taking forever to update, please have a chapter that is double the normal length. Enjoy!

Asta and Yuno came to a stop in front of their small, local library. To say it looked like shit was an understatement. The windows were all completely smashed in, some of their sharp edges coated in blood. If Yuno squinted he could make out the torn piece of a flannel patterned shirt stuck on the spikes of the furthest window, almost hidden by the branches of a tree in front of it. The glass panels of the automatic sliding doors were similarly shattered, deep red splatters decorating the white frame. There were even sprawled out bodies blocking the entrance. They smelled horrific.

Yuno prayed to all the gods he didn’t believe in for them to not get up.

The inside didn’t fare much better. In fact, it was arguably worse than the outside because on the inside was a mess of overturned bookshelves, barricades made of tables and chairs, and even  _ more  _ dead bodies. Oh, how fun! Just what he wanted. It must be his damn birthday.

Too bad it was actually the middle of summer.

“Well fuck,” his companion said. Yuno never felt so spiritually connected to a sentence in his entire life. Asta really was wise sometimes. “Hate to say it, but we gotta go in there.” Nevermind. Asta was an idiot.

“Are you serious? This place has ‘a bad zombie movie cliche’ written all over it. There are no less than ten bodies in there and those are just the ones I can see and that aren’t buried under a pile of books. I’m dead meat if I go in there,” Yuno reasoned. There were way too many corpses. Too many chances to get chomped on. Yuno’s hands trembled slightly at the thought.

“Unless you can lead us all the way to Capital City by memory, we  _ have _ to get a map. Don’t worry, I got a plan. Remember the sound trick I told you about earlier? Watch this and don’t make noise, okay?” Yuno nodded and willed his fingers to stop trembling. It was going to be fine. He wasn’t scared of sacks of rotten flesh for fucks sake.

Asta took off his backpack, placing it on the ground and unzipping it. He pulled out the speaker and his phone. He connected the two devices and spastically pressed the top volume key to what Yuno assumed was the maximum. Asta did the same with the speaker and then looked up at him from his crouched position on the concrete. 

“You got any requests?”

“No?” Yuno replied unsurely. Asta’s lips pulled up into a mischievous grin.

“Alright.” He stood up and walked to the end of the parking lot, far away from the windows and the entrance. He placed the speaker down, started walking back, and made direct eye contact with Yuno before he looked down at his phone and gave it a single tap.

Yuno groaned. Asta was playing “Thriller” by Micheal Jackson.

“Was that really necessary? We are living in an actual, real-life, zombie apocalypse and your song of choice is ‘Thriller’?” Yuno deadpanned. Asta gawked at him in disbelief.

“How can you not find this hilarious?! Are you a robot or something?” Asta’s knuckles rapped Yuno’s forehead, knocking on his skull as if he were a door.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

“Just checking.” Yuno was about to use some colorful words to express his distaste with Asta, but the blinding grin on the boy’s face made the words fall from his mouth. Yuno’s lip pulled up against his will. Asta’s smile was like a disease in and of itself. Infectious as all hell. It was amazing the silver-haired boy could get any sort of reaction from him, but turning his frustration into amusement was something else entirely.

Asta was really special.

“We should back away and chill for a while. It’ll take some time for all the zombies to gather around the speaker.” They walked across the street and sat down at the sidewalk facing the library’s parking lot, playing rock paper scissors to pass the time. Their background music was zombie groans and a shitty playlist of Halloween music. When “Monster Mash” came up on the queue Yuno had to pause their game to bury his face in his arms and groan. Asta just giggled like a toddler.

They both called it after “Spooky Scary Skeletons”. The crowd of the undead surrounding the speaker was, quite frankly, horrifying. The zombies from inside the library that could still walk had toppled over the window, not even flinching as shards of glass embedded themselves in their gray-tinted skin. What surprised Yuno the most was that none of them bent down to claw at the speaker. They just stumbled into each other in a weird cluster, and no more were joining from the inside.

Asta and Yuno quietly made their way to the windows and helped each other climb through them without cutting themselves. Glancing around, Yuno was glad to see the remaining bodies in the library were either trapped under books and bookshelves or completely unresponsive. It was reassuring for sure, but he didn’t let his guard down for even a second.

“We just need a road map right?” Yuno whispered. Asta nodded.

“I have no idea where one would be though. I say we make our way to the front desk and start there,” Asta said in the same hushed voice. Asta led the way forward, kicking a pile of books on the ground before he randomly said, “I never read the Harry Potter books.”

Yuno was about to ask why the hell he even mentioned the book series when he saw the cover of the particular novel Asta was kicking around.  _ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  _ was a real brick of a book, it’s pages fluttering violently when Asta kicked it.

“Neither did I. Heard the author is a bigot.” Yuno hopped on top of a fallen bookcase Asta was standing on top of to survey the inside of the library. He spotted the remains of the front desk further ahead and motioned for Yuno to follow him with his hand while Yuno continued talking. “Still took the Pottermore quiz to find out my Hogwarts house though.”

“Same! I’m a Hufflepuff!” Asta’s quiet excitement at the topic was contagious, even if it was for something as dumb as a glorified personality test.

“I’m a Ravenclaw,” Yuno said with a smile.

“That makes sense. You always did seem like a Ravenclaw, especially in school.” Yuno’s smile flagged at the mention of school, but he willed it to stay put.

“Yeah. It seems to fit me well, but I wouldn’t say I’m wise or that I would backstab people for academic excellence, though I think that’s just a bad stereotype for the house.” 

While his younger self definitely did whatever it took to obtain high marks, his present self couldn’t say that he valued them so highly anymore. How could you value academic excellence when you had to use one hundred percent of your mental ability to just keep yourself alive each day? Besides, Yuno’s school days were not filled with particularly fond memories.

The few fond memories he did have were always when Mimosa dragged him away from his normal study routine and they wasted the day away in her house with her annoying older brother and her loud cousins. Most of his high school experience was spent making sure he got the best grades in all his classes, regardless of what it cost him socially and mentally. He had just wanted to make his father proud of him.

Now it just felt like he wasted his time. Precious time he could have spent with his dad instead of focusing on some faceless future. He should have lived more in the moment, savored all the interactions he had with his dad before it was too late. He should have done so much differently, but nothing could be changed now. It was all in the past. A past where he hadn’t been smart at all, despite his grades. A past where he was a dumb kid with dumb priorities like studying for a math test instead of spending time with his dad.

A past where he was an awful son that got his father killed.

“What books did you read as a kid?” Yuno asked in hopes of distracting himself from his train of thought.

“I wasn’t much of a reader,” Asta let out a tiny laugh, ”but I liked the  _ Goosebumps  _ books and comics as a kid. Still do.”

“Ah. I personally liked the  _ Percy Jackson  _ books, but I didn’t read much either. At least not in high school. I would read a lot when I was younger.”

“If you liked reading, why did you stop?”

“Between track and field, the school newspaper, and being a Board member, I was completely booked before and after school. At home, I just did school work and studied. I never really had the time.” Yuno said bitterly, ending the conversation. They had reached the overturned front desk and started looking around for any place a map could be. The two made idle chit chat in the meantime, talking about the shows they watched as kids (Asta loved  _ Spongebob _ , Yuno was biased toward  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ ) and other useless things.

Asta eventually managed to find one in a bloody metal file cabinet.

“Yuno! I found one!” The shorter boy rushed toward Yuno, bumping into his shoulder in his haste. Yuno couldn’t help but think about how warm Asta’s body felt against his. The other boy held the map in both his hands, looking at it intently.

“We’ve been traveling in the right direction, so that’s good at least. There’s a large residential housing area near here. It should be nothing but small streets and homes, so if we travel through it and camp out in a house for the night, we can make a route to Capital City before we rest for today or first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s get the hell out of here. I feel like I’m in an indie horror game and that any second now a zombie’s hand is going to shoot out from under a pile of books and have my ankle as an appetizer.” Yuno started walking back to the broken windows, Asta right by his side.

“Don’t be so dramatic! It could always be worse.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

They made it over the windows once more and into the library’s parking lot where the horde was still circling the speaker. Yuno watched with mild curiosity as Asta paused the music on his phone. Coincidently, he saw the playlist Asta had been using was titled “Spoopy Birthday Month Songs” and filed the information away for later. It seemed like they shared the same birthday month.

What happened next was perhaps the single most strange thing Yuno had witnessed in this entire life. Asta put his index finger to his lips in the universal ‘shhh’ gesture, as if Yuno  _ dared  _ open his mouth when he was this close to so many zombies. He waited patiently though, his confusion growing steadily with each passing second.

What was Asta waiting for? He had stopped the music, but the heap of the undead was still bunched together. How was he going to get his speaker back?

Then, slowly, as if a spell was being undone, the creatures turned away from the center of the pile where the speaker lay and began to disperse. Their bodies bumped into each other, but they didn’t pay it any mind as they moved away from each other in jerky staggering motions.

After waiting a little bit longer, they dodged the path of a couple of zombies (which was admittedly much less terrifying after doing the exact same but at double the speed on a skateboard) and retrieved Asta’s speaker. Yuno followed him as the other crossed the street and began walking deeper into the residential neighborhood he talked about earlier.

They arbitrarily picked a home to camp out in for the night after seeing that all the homes were in a similar state of chaos. It was a decently sized one-story house painted a maroon red color. The two teenagers made a plan to clear out the house of any potential monsters. Asta would go inside, moving quietly, opening the doors to any closed rooms, and luring all zombies outside with some yelling. Then he would hide outside where he was a safe distance away, but Yuno could still see him.

Yuno would wait for the first one to come out along with Asta and then play music on the speaker to lure them away from Asta. He would have to be close enough for all of them to hear the music, so he would need to move around closeby for a while until Asta got all the zombies out. Once the shorter boy did so, he would give Yuno a thumbs up to signal as such and Yuno would lead them further away from the house before stopping the music and coming back to join Asta.

Overall, the plan worked surprisingly well. Yuno was worried about having to lead those bloodthirsty bastards away and essentially have them chase him for an extended period of time, but he was calm when he did it. Asta was relying on him to do his part, trusting him to do so even though Yuno had shown repeatedly that being around zombies unnerved him. He didn’t want to let Asta down, so he sucked it up, only freaking out afterward in the relative safety of the home they had just cleared of four zombies.

He was shaking slightly when he entered the house with Asta for the first time. Yuno could see Asta’s eyes soften in an expression he desperately hoped wasn’t pity. The silver-haired boy put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and while it did offer some form of comfort, he couldn’t stop shaking.

“Come on, let's explore this place for anything useful and then eat something.” Yuno simply nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady if he used it to answer.

They started in the living room where Yuno found a slightly rusted crowbar and promptly claimed it as his new weapon. He was going to need more than a swiss army knife on him in case they ever got into any trouble. There was also a small axe in the corner closest to the front door, but Yuno knew he would never be able to actually use it. Even though they were trying to eat him, zombies were once human. He didn’t want to hurt them. After all, they were trying to get to Capital City to develop a vaccine. What use would there be in killing the very people of Clover they were trying to save?

There were three bedrooms to go through. There was nothing of consequence in the first two but it was worth noting that both rooms, including their respective mattresses, were drenched in dried blood. The third bedroom was relatively clean, had clothes that looked like they could fit them both, and contained a deck of Uno cards at which Asta went  _ insane _ .

“We  _ have  _ to play!” Asta held up the cards as if he were marveling at baby Jesus or something. 

“There are only two of us.”

“So what? We can still play! Betcha I can win more times than you can.” Asta’s smug face really riled Yuno up in ways he didn’t know were possible. This was stupid. He had nothing to prove. It was a game for  _ children- _

“Unless you’re scared of losing?” Asta taunted with a shit-eating grin.

_ “Game on, bitch.” _

The next forty minutes were filled with ten very intense games of Uno. There were hushed screams of frustration from Asta and plenty of passive-aggressive comments from Yuno. He ended up winning six to four and the look of pure and utter  _ despair  _ on Asta’s face made Yuno more proud than he was when he found out he was his school’s valedictorian.

After that madness, they explored the kitchen and were thankful to see it had lots of canned food which they mixed with the food in their bags for a filling dinner. Then came the talk about sleeping arrangements.

“You can have the clean bedroom, Yuno. I’ll take the couch in the living room,” said Asta after they finished eating. 

“No, I can take the couch. It doesn’t matter to me,” Yuno responded.

“Wow. First you beat my ass in Uno without mercy, and now you have enough manners to offer me the bed?”

“You pissed me off.” Yuno shrugged like the comment meant nothing at all. Asta laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

“Fine, I’ll take the bed so I don’t piss you off again, pretty boy. But before I go to bed, can we do something?” Yuno didn’t get flustered by the nickname. He didn’t. His face was just warm because it was hot. That’s all.

“Like what?”

“I take a picture at the end of every day. I like looking back on them and remembering what I did, so I wanted to take a picture with you for today," Asta said. He did the thing where he rubbed the back of his neck nervously and looked down.

"I'd be happy to." And he meant it. He was happy to pose for a picture even though he probably looked like shit and he didn't like taking photos. He was happy because somehow he had managed to become someone Asta wanted to  _ remember.  _ As if he meant something to the other boy. As if he was important to him even after only such a short time of really knowing each other.

So, he took a selfie with Asta. There wasn't very much preparation at all for it. Asta simply grabbed him by the shoulders (and holy fuck was he strong) making him hunch forward, smushed his face against Yuno’s, and told him to smile. When Asta showed him the picture, he almost couldn't believe his eyes.

His cheeks were slightly pink from how close Asta had pulled him, but what really made Yuno look at the picture in awe was the soft smile tugging on his own lips as his eyes looked to Asta fondly. He looked so relaxed and young. It was sort of strange to see. He wondered if he had ever made the same face at anyone before.

Probably only to Mimosa or his father.

"This one's good! Thanks, Yuno. I'll let you sleep now. Goodnight." Their eyes met, and for a brief second, Yuno wanted to ask Asta to stay just a little while longer, but he didn't.

"Goodnight."

* * *

Yuno heard banging on the door and windows. For a few moments that was all he could make out, but as he groggily opened his eyes and got up from where he had fallen asleep on the couch, he picked up on the savage groans and clawing sounds coming from every direction. He quickly picked up the crowbar from its place on the floor next to the rest of his belongings, and ran to the door of Asta’s room, yanking it open harshly.

“Asta! Get up! I don’t know how, but we’re surrounded. We need to get out and-” but there was no one there. Yuno pulled the wrinkled blankets away from the bed and sure enough, the bed was empty.

Asta was gone.

The piercing sound of glass breaking and the door coming down made liquid fear shoot through Yuno’s veins. Had they actually managed to break into the living room? The movement of zombies was severely impaired compared to regular humans. It was the reason most of them limped and moved so slow. If they had enough strength to bust down doors and windows, that meant there was an entire  _ horde  _ outside. His legs gave out on him as his suspicions were confirmed with a glance at the bedroom window. Even though it was pitch black outside, Yuno could clearly make out several swaying bodies outside.

Suddenly, the hands banging against the window in front of him surged forward and broke through the glass. Shards fell at his feet where he sat crumpled on the floor, clutching his crowbar in a death grip as he watched zombie after zombie climb through the window. It wasn’t long before the zombies that had invaded the main room joined them. Gray, clouded eyes and pale, lifeless bodies focused on him collectively, their movements no longer slow and lazy but fast and ravenous.

Yuno managed to swat away some of his first attackers with the crowbar, but his shaky hands couldn’t grip the metal tight enough and it slipped from his fingers and onto the ground with a  _ clank _ . It took no time at all for the mob to take advantage of it.

The first bite was on his arm, the next on his ankle, the one after that on his neck. More tore through his worn clothes, ripping them to shreds. He screamed and screamed, so much so that they deafened his own ears to the sick sound of his flesh being torn from his body and the chewing that followed. He thrashed around weekly, pain and agony taking over his senses as he looked on in horror at the pool of his own blood surrounding him and the faces of past humans covered in it.

Then everything went dark.

Yuno awoke once again, this time for real, with a start, clutching the fabric of his shirt above his thundering heart. He gasped for air, but every time he breathed in, it felt like he was drowning. He had been bitten, he was screaming and getting  _ eaten alive _ just a second ago. This wasn’t real. Nothing felt real. He had  _ died- _

“Yuno, are you alright?” Yuno’s eyes shot up.

It was Asta.

Asta, who was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and looking at Yuno in concern, but more importantly he was just  _ there. _ He didn’t vanish. He didn’t leave Yuno for dead.

Yuno was still struggling for air, so he didn’t respond. He just tried to get his breathing under control. His eyes never left Asta’s shadowy figure as it came closer. Close enough for Yuno to see his eyes, his nose, his lips, his cheeks, his hair, and everything else. He was really there. This was real. What he had been through was nothing more than a fucked up nightmare. Asta’s hand slowly came to rest upon the hand fisting his shirt, and it made Yuno relax his grip. He let his hand fall, but instead of pulling away, Asta’s hand followed his own and he held it tenderly.

When he finally caught his breath and spoke, Yuno’s voice was hoarse, almost as if he really  _ had  _ been screaming in the middle of that horde, but he purged the thought from his mind.

“Bad dream.”

Asta’s eyebrows furrowed and he let out a contemplative hum. Then, as if struck with an amazing idea, his eyes lit up and he smiled.

“Come to my room. I have just the thing to help.”

“Okay.” Yuno didn’t know if it was physically possible for him to refuse Asta, especially not when the boy was still holding his hand and leading him to his room with such patience and care.

“Lay down and get comfy,” the other boy ordered. Asta grabbed something from his backpack and then got under the covers. Yuno did as he was told, choosing to vehemently ignore how okay he was with sharing a bed with Asta and how safe he felt in the same room he had died in just because Asta was there with him.

“Put these on.” Asta handed Yuno his pair of black headphones and Yuno again followed Asta’s order. Asta connected the wire to his phone and within a few seconds, Yuno was listening to a calm song he remembered hearing on the radio months ago before all of this started. A sad smile made its way to his lips, but he focused on nothing but the words and the sounds filling his ears.

Yuno fell asleep to the sounds of chill radio hits and the feeling of a warm hand holding his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asta totally took a picture of Yuno sleeping.
> 
> Tell me what you thought below!
> 
> IG: natsa.fics


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